>> Even using the term “Fetus” does not solve the problem since dictionaries say the fertilized egg is not a fetus immediately but only after a certain developmental stage is reached.<<
Earl,
I fully agree with you that “fetus” is not a blanket term for all stages of development prior to birth. As I said, our English use is narrower than the Latin. I mention it only because I’ve occasionally heard it used as a rhetorical weapon, as if it described something fundamentally different from an unborn child/offspring/progeny/fruit-of-his-father’s-loins, or whatever else you might call a mini not-quite-born humanoid.
>> Why must the fertilized egg at whatever stage be one or the other? i.e. a human life or a tumor.<<
I didn’t mean to set it up as “human life” vs. “tumor.” We would have to look at the life, at whatever stage prior to birth, and say, “Is this human life or is this not human life?” If it is not human life, that is, something less than human, then of course it’s value is negligible compared to the only human life involved, the life of the mother. If for some reason we came to the conclusion that this unborn life is indeed human, then we would have two human lives to concern ourselves with, one wholly dependent upon the other, and would have to act accordingly.
A third possibility, one that I have serious reservations about, is that what is “human” belongs on some kind of sliding scale, that humanity is relative. In this case a fertilized egg might start out as less than human and gradually increase in humanity until birth, at which point full humanity would (hopefully) be achieved. If humanity is relative, how do we gauge it? That is, on what factors does it depend? Mental capacity? Physical or sensory development? Age? Size? Dependence?
My problem is that choosing any one or combination of factors to make humanity relative has disastrous results for the rest of society. Who among us has the hubris to claim authority over who qualifies? I shudder to think of whole classes of people, the mentally undeveloped, the elderly and infirm, the poor, the unwanted, the handicapped, that girl on Hard Copy who couldn’t feel pain… all being reclassified as “less than fully human,” and therefore less valuable, using the same logic we might use to say that an embryo/fetus/whatever is partially, but not fully, human.
I myself, once upon a time, was a wee itty bitty baby in my mommy’s tummy, and I was born dangerously premature. My body was far too small and not yet developed enough to survive outside her. I was fully dependent on machines and medical science for survival. If my humanity were dependent on time from conception or size, development or independence, at that point I would not have qualified. Why was I considered human then, and granted “personhood?” My location. If I’d been physically identical and still within her instead of a plastic box, I would not have been human by reason of location. I find that critically illogical.
A philosophical principle that is hardly radical today, one I hope we can agree upon, was eloquently stated by Thomas Jefferson in the opening of the Declaration of Independence in 1776:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Of course, it makes sense read “men” in the broader sense of referring to all mankind. They are equal; that is, they share equal dignity and value by virtue of their common humanity regardless of stature or intelligence or physical vitality. They are endowed with unalienable rights. I think we should note the hierarchy of these rights: One cannot pursue happiness without liberty, and one cannot have liberty without life, so the preeminent right is life. Also, Jefferson noted that these rights are inalienable. That is, it is not under the power of the government to bestow them or take them away, because they come from a power above government; namely, “their Creator.” Does it make sense to include the unborn? Not if their lives are not human lives. However, if they are indeed human, if they share our common humanity, then our principles tell us that their rights are Equal, no matter how weak, small, or dependent they may be.
Barring, then, the relativistic sliding-scale approach we must determine whether or not the life in the womb, at any stage, is human. I find it easiest to start at the end and work backwards. If one of a pair of twins is born and therefore inarguably human, the burden of proof would be on the person who claimed that the second twin on the way, differing from its sibling only by location, was not also human. It would be careless and foolish to not consider the unborn twin as also human for lack of evidence to the contrary. Until I am made aware of a logical argument that disproves the humanity of a full-term baby based on its location, I must consider it fully human. What’s more, because I cannot consider humanity a function of size or development, because I do not have the authority to declare who is or is not human, I trace the development of the human life back to it’s source, and conclude that both the humanity and the life began at conception-- on principle, not because it looks or acts or seems human, but because I know, logically, that it is.